Eric Holder spent six years as Barack Obama's attorney general – and called himself Obama's personal "wingman."
Now Obama is on television telling America the attorney general is supposed to be independent.
What real internet wingmen did the moment those words left his mouth is the reason you're reading this right now.
Obama Went on Colbert and Got Destroyed by His Own Record
Obama appeared on The Late Show May 5, just weeks before Stephen Colbert ends his run, and took multiple veiled shots at Trump on presidential power and the Justice Department.
"The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants prosecuted," Obama told Colbert and the applauding studio audience.
"The idea is that the attorney general is the people's lawyer," he said. "It's not the president's consiglieri."
The White House didn't let it slide for five minutes.
"He is a total disgrace for all the division he has sowed upon this country, and history will not judge him well," White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said, adding that Obama was "a classless moron" suffering from "a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Then the internet delivered the knockout.
In a 2013 radio interview with Tom Joyner, Eric Holder was asked about his future plans.
"I'm still enjoying what I'm doing, there's still work to be done," Holder said. "I'm still the president's wingman, so I'm there with my boy."
The people's lawyer.
Right.
What Obama's Wingman Actually Did With That Power
Here's the record Obama is apparently hoping nobody looks up.
Holder dropped the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case – a case his own department had already won.
Holder ran Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF program that walked thousands of American firearms directly into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered with one of those guns.
Holder stonewalled Congress for months when investigators demanded documents related to the operation.
In June 2012, the House of Representatives voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress – making him the first sitting Cabinet member in American history to receive that designation.
Obama responded by invoking executive privilege to block the document release.
That's the wingman relationship in practice – the boss using the full power of the presidency to run cover when the wingman gets caught.
The Pattern Obama Built and Now Pretends He Didn't
Obama isn't making a mistake when he lectures about DOJ independence.
He's making a bet that the same media apparatus that called his Justice Department scandal-free for eight years will carry enough water to make people forget the record.
Loretta Lynch met privately with Bill Clinton on an Arizona tarmac while the FBI was actively investigating his wife.
She admitted she should have recused herself.
She kept the job.
The press treated it as an awkward footnote, not a constitutional crisis.
Obama sat in the White House through all of it – through Holder's contempt citation, through Lynch's tarmac meeting – and never once suggested the attorney general needed to be more independent from the White House.
Now Trump's acting AG Todd Blanche has re-indicted James Comey over a social media post prosecutors say depicted a coded threat against the president's life, and the same crowd that cheered Obama's DOJ is calling it the end of American democracy.
Obama built the blueprint.
Holder ran it proudly and called it wingmanship.
Now Obama went on a late-night show in its final weeks, told a friendly crowd the AG is supposed to be independent, and got hit with his own words before the segment was cold.
The internet never forgets.
Sources:
- Charles Creitz, "Obama branded 'classless moron' for AG jab at Trump as 'wingman' comments resurface," Fox News, May 6, 2026.
- "Eric Holder says he's Obama's 'wingman,'" Politico, April 2013.
- "House holds Holder in contempt," Fox News, June 2012.
- "Obama tells Colbert he worries about politicization of the criminal justice system," CBS News, May 6, 2026.
- "DOJ gets indictment against former FBI director James Comey," NPR, April 28, 2026.
- "Obama suggests Colbert would outperform Trump as president," Washington Times, May 6, 2026.
